The theme of Victory/Defeat was clearly conveyed with the surfer images provided by dcstep. Almost classically, in fact.

However, I really liked the vividness of the pepper in Spanner1751's "defeat" image. It was a bright and detailed, and overall a great image. Problem was, I felt that the birds in the "victory" image were a bit dark in comparison. My mind kept telling me what it was (Birds, then eaten pepper), but my eyes were drawn to the vivid image of the half-eaten pepper.

And that's what got to me - I could not associate a vivid, bright image of the pepper, however half-eaten it may have been, as defeat, in my mind, next to the slightly darker image of the birds.

I know I'm new to this part of the forum but I hope to contribute on a more regular basis and would like to submit for the next one. It's nice to see some participation in these contests, so hopefully I can do my part to increase the participation part, with my own.

I appreciate your comments. Originally, I had a picture of a nice ripe pepper and an eaten one. Next, I thought that I should put a picture of the birds that eat the peppers, and designed a 3-panel diptych with the ripe pepper, birds, and eaten pepper, but that didn't meet the rules of two panels.
A major problem was the birds usually attack the peppers in the evening, so the picture wasn't the best due to the bad lighting.
Maybe I should have stuck with my original concept of a whole pepper and an eaten one, the colors would have brighter.
At any rate, I learned a few things this time, so it wasn't a compete loss. All I hope for in these contests is one vote. If I get more than that, I'm really happy.

The theme of Victory/Defeat was clearly conveyed with the surfer images provided by dcstep. Almost classically, in fact.

However, I really liked the vividness of the pepper in Spanner1751's "defeat" image. It was a bright and detailed, and overall a great image. Problem was, I felt that the birds in the "victory" image were a bit dark in comparison. My mind kept telling me what it was (Birds, then eaten pepper), but my eyes were drawn to the vivid image of the half-eaten pepper.

And that's what got to me - I could not associate a vivid, bright image of the pepper, however half-eaten it may have been, as defeat, in my mind, next to the slightly darker image of the birds.